Sumptuous Sushi

For some reason I have to be in just the right mood for sushi.  But then, when I'm eating it, I think "I love this stuff.  I need to be eating this on a very regular basis."  Happily, there is an incredible sushi bar in town called Sushi Okalani.  It is the spot that I will be indulging in what I hope to be a much more frequent communication with this fresh and sort of funny dish.  The owner, a balding and bespectacled Rick Moranis-type, stood behind the bar with his sous chefs the entire time Adam and I were there, with his hands wrist-deep in sticky rice and strips of raw fish.  I like it when a proprietor is down in the trenches like that-- it conveys a sense of pride, and the notion that "if you want something done... ."

But I'm glad for selfish reasons too, because I had the pleasure of sampling some of this man's truly heavenly creations.  To start we had a filet of Crispy Grilled Trout.  It arrived unassumingly, with only some scant sliced cabbage beneath it which seemed to serve less as a garnish than as a ventilating method to prevent the fish from getting soggy on the plate.  The filet itself wore a thin, crispy, tempura-type batter and came with a bowl of dipping sauce on the side.  The sauce was awesome: sweet and salty and suggestive (not the harsh, jelly-like teriyaki glaze you'll find at a lesser joint), but it was just the icing on the cake because the fish itself was fresh, tender and flavorful.  Even the skin was yummy and oily but not rubbery in the way that fish skin can too often become.

But here was the real star of the show: 

Called the Locals Only Te Maki, this gorgeous sushi roll contained smoked Steelhead, sauteed lobster mushrooms, and I believe some slivers of cucumber.  It was absolute heaven.  There are few things tastier to my mind than a well-smoked piece of fish.  To pair it with some pretty dang interesting mushrooms, and then to wrap it all in the perennially yummy combo of seaweed and sticky rice... well, let's just say you've got some serious moaning and groaning going on.

Interesting note: I just looked up Steelhead on wikipedia and you might like to know that Steelhead and Rainbow Trout are exactly the same species, but only Steelhead go to the ocean for a few years and then return to fresh water to spawn.  Rainbow Trout live in fresh water their whole lives.  The flesh of Rainbow Trout is white and the flesh of the Steelhead, as you can see, is pink like salmon.  I'm not sure why this is, since they are virtually the same species.  I imagine it's due to varying diets, but my cursory research didn't shed any light on that.

The roll was so good that, after we had cleaned our plate (even munching down all the pickled ginger when the sushi was gone), we called for another order and happily put that away too.  This on top of a Spicy Tuna roll and some Inari!  What's that you say?  Smoked fish has no place in a sushi roll?  You're not supposed to cook the veggies first?  Well, my friends, I guess only locals would understand.
The meal was rounded out by a great bottle of sake, called Hakutsuru Junmai Daiginjo.  Hakutsuru is the name, but Junmai Daiginjo refers to the production method of the sake.  The rice used has a high polish, which means a large percentage of each grain of rice (at least 50%!) is buffered off, leaving only the creamy, flawless inner part.  The brewing methods are much more careful, too, and sake of this quality is often handmade, instead of being entrusted to machines.  The restaurant served it chilled with a highball class, instead of one of those thimble sized-ones we're all used to.  Easier to get a good nose on it that way.  (The only reason I know any of this stuff is that I wrote an article for the Portland Monthly on another kind of sake, to be published in November!  More on that when the article comes out.)

It was an exquisite meal.  Perhaps my reticence toward sushi was just proof that I hadn't found the right purveyor, because it's only been 24 hours and I'm already sensing a craving coming on...